Save for two elections in 1974 and one in 1964 when the seat leant to the right bucking the national result, the affiliation of the winning candidate was that of the winning party nationally for the years 1959-2017 – a bellwether. Bristol North West is one of all four Bristol City seats won (held or gained) by a Labour candidate in 2017 and whose boundaries are nominally considered periodically for review as four of 13 local potential cross-local-authority boundary review areas, which being for a defunct county, Avon, is eschewed by the commission's own rules. Jones' 2017 win was one of 30 net gains of the Labour Party. The forthcoming Boundary Review has no intention of considering Bristol alongside Avon or Gloucestershire though it is expected to be depicted as such cartographically to present a rural and urban balance.

Party positions altered completely in 2010 with the Liberal Democrat candidate, Paul Harrod achieving second place with a slightly larger one party swing, of 11.4%, than winning candidate Charlotte Leslie and saw a fresh Labour Party candidate suffer a large decrease in percentage of the Labour vote of 20.8%.[n 3] This changed in 2015 with the Conservatives winning the seat with an increased majority of 9.5%, and Labour moving back into second place. In the snap 2017 general election, the seat was lost to the Labour party on a swing of 9%.[3]

The 2017 win was a surprise to the successful Labour candidate Darren Jones. He attributes his win to three factors: Corbyn and a good Labour manifesto, the youth vote, and Europe (the constituency had voted 61% remain).[4]